In defense of the ‘How I Met Your Mother’ series finale

I did something kind of crazy yesterday: I watched the last 20 episodes of How I Met Your Mother in a 24-hour period.

The show was one I always preferred in binges (Thanks Netflix!), because just 22-minutes with the MacLaren’s gang never quite satisfied me. So, after starting the season last September, and not really being into the idea that it’d all take place entirely at Robin and Barney’s nuptials, I fell off. I realized that I had made a huge mistake yesterday when the internet was spewing HIMYM spoiler after spoiler. SERIOUS SPOILERS AHEAD!

So, I did it and I laughed and I cried (bawled) and I was angry and I was happy, but I was overall very satisfied by the finale. I wasn’t expecting to be. Almost every tweet, Facebook post and link that I saw looked something like “We deserved more from the finale”, “I hated the ending” or “We waited this long for THIS?” (My personal favorite was “I’m never watching this show again!” to which I reply “LOL, well lucky you, it’s over.”)

Sure, the episode, like the final season, and each character, had its flaws. The pacing, in particular, was a point of frustration. The show runners and writers were out to do something different during the sitcom’s final season. While stretching only 56 hours (plus, of course, plenty of flashbacks and flash-forwards) into 25 episodes, and then squeezing 15+ years into the final episode seemed like a cop-out, it allowed viewers to see the serious cracks in the relationship between Barney and Robin. Of course, they loved each other, but almost every episode had Robin doubting (or running from, or expressing frustration with) the relationship. It became more obvious that the marriage wouldn’t last when the sole flash-forward of the two together seemed to be the aftermath of a fun, drunken night, but ended up being a way of putting off a marriage-ending talk. Divorce happens, and that’s okay. Unfortunately, much to the dismay of many B&R-shippers, they weren’t perfect together for the long term.

There have been complaints that both characters completely regressed in the final episode. Realistically, though, doesn’t that seem natural to an extent after a heartbreak? Unfortunately, the timing for the two wasn’t right and post-Robin, Barney used his old ways as a method of self-preservation. This seems more accurate for his character than him being a completely changed man. Of course, after the demise of his only real and loving relationship, he’d cope with women and booze. Until, quite beautifully, he met the real love of his life – his daughter Ellie. This, we see evidence of at MacLaren’s, is the catalyst Barney needed to really change and grow up.

In terms of the relationship between, Ted and Tracy, we were privy to only moments of what appeared to be a deep and loving relationship. She was not a tool for Ted to get to Robin, which is obvious in the way that Ted speaks of her throughout the series. He loved his children’s mother from the moment he met her, through her death, and he didn’t appear to pine for Robin while they were together. He stressed time and again how much he loved Tracy, but, like Tracy who moved on after her first love died, Ted had to do the same. When Tracy died, it took Ted a long time – six years! — to feel ready to move on, and it was then that he realized that he still cared for Robin.

Of course, the show was titled How I Met Your Mother, not How I Met Your Aunt Robin, but the show has always been about Robin and Ted and the gang – with the mother a secondary character (which was no accident!) It was about a core group of friends. Part of that dynamic was how Ted and Robin never truly moved on, which is part of why Robin and Barney could have never worked. It wasn’t by accident that the story started when Ted first met Robin. When Ted and Robin first met – and until the end of the series – they weren’t right for one another. Robin had her professional goals and plans to travel the world, and Ted wanted to settle down and have children, but by the time they were 50-somethings, it was finally time for the couple to have their moment.

The ending wrapped up nicely, but not how many may wanted it to go. We all knew that it wouldn’t end exactly as expected. Not everyone has the opportunity to spend forever with the loves of their lives, and many people can and do experience multiple true, great relationships throughout a lifetime. While Marshall and Lily were blessed to find one another and grow old together, unfortunately – and realistically – Barney and Robin, Ted and Tracy, and Tracy and Max weren’t lucky in the same way. The whole series was more about the journey than the final destination …and who knows where the characters go from here? Plans don’t always work out and life is messy, not perfect. There are births and deaths, breakups and makeups, marriages and divorces, professional triumphs and mishaps, and How I Met Your Mother accurately depicted that. The best we can do is try to achieve happiness – and in the end, all five of the main characters got just that.